Multiplayer...

[Drekken]

What I'm saying is that the experience doesn't seem to warrant the development effort.

I get what you're saying. I am just saying that I disagree with your opinion.

For example, can you describe what a Co-Op experience you would find satisfying would look like?

Very similar to StarCraft 2's co-op, of course with the exception of it being an RTS and what I have already outlined.

 

[sillyjordo]

Played my 1st MP last night... If this game is going to have a "Meta", then MP will die.

Building a lance just to beat Firestarters isn't super-fun.

I just wanted to play battletech.

 

[Bolfry]

Well I was a kickstarter. Life events prevented me from being in Beta for MP testing. I knew from the start the kickstarter was about an MP game with an added-on single player campaign. To me, that was icing on the cake.

Having not played a good deal of online games of late, I wanted to play through the SP before going into MP to "get gud" before getting seal clubbed to "get moar batterer."

Now that I am done with the campaign, I'll be giving MP a whirl. If they delivered on what I bargained for, along with so many of you, I'll be in there as often as possible. I don't get to go out an game like I used to...so I plan to be a constant presence in MP online if it isn't overly frustrating to play.

Yes, this includes the type of players I will play against. I'm one of those players who has been doing this game in various forms since the '80s. I don't have time for glitchers, quitters, whiners, cheaters, bad sports, cheese builders, and the like. If there is an online entity that sets these standards and keeps them, I invite a representative to send me a private message and I'll look into your online group.

Other than that - good job so far HBS. We made a bargain when I signed on for this and paid you. I let it slide when things got sidelined, cancelled, and massively delayed. I sincerely hope you will deliver on the rest. If the MP is BAD I will not stay and likely not buy more DLC, upgrades, etc. This was my first software kickstarter. I'm sure I am not the only one who feels this way. Please deliver and you'll have a loyal fan.

 

[Ozymandious]

The unofficial hbs discord is the place to go to arainge matches with good people. If you talk to people their you can get good non cheese games or cheese to your hearts content. People on the discord are in my experience very welcoming and helpful.
https://discord.gg/qxCr7A
Arranging matches on the discord is a much different experience from hosting a random game. Most random players in my experience fall into the oh noes pvper rage quit cheese lance category while the people I talk to on discord are reasonable and willing to accommodate different styles of play.

 

[Mojo Amok]

I knew from the start the kickstarter was about an MP game with an added-on single player campaign.

I have no idea how you would have come that that conclusion. PVP was Battletech's final stretch goal and the developers were known for creating story-rich single-player cRPGs at the time of the Kickstarter. All the previous stretch goals before the PVP unlock were oriented around the single-player campaign.

Outside of Battletech, HBS has never created a PVP title and Necropolis - released after the Kickstarter - is the only other multiplayer title on the studio resume. However, it's PVE Co-Op.

 

[Slayer_TNT]

Very similar to StarCraft 2's co-op, of course with the exception of it being an RTS and what I have already outlined.

OK, so like two independent Lances? I can see that more but the real value of a second player in Starcraft is, like in Mechwarrior, the ability to respond to a rapidly evolving situation or to bring unit capabilities you do not possess (like Zerg + Protoss), which also isn't present here. I just don'tr see it.

 

[Jack Ryan]

I have no idea how you would have come that that conclusion. PVP was Battletech's final stretch goal and the developers were known for creating story-rich single-player cRPGs at the time of the Kickstarter. All the previous stretch goals before the PVP unlock were oriented around the single-player campaign.

Outside of Battletech, HBS has never created a PVP title and Necropolis - released after the Kickstarter - is the only other multiplayer title on the studio resume. However, it's PVE Co-Op.

I hate to be the one to point this out, however, Battletech, the game this was essentially "spiritually" ported from is a Multi-player game. Thus, most of us that had experience with the table top would consider Battletech to be a Multi-player game. Now, people can argue all they want about the Kickstarter stages and the initial stages being Single player and all, however, this port of the TT became a Multiplayer game the moment the MP goals were funded.

It doesn't matter at which stage in the kickstarter that the Multiplayer element of the game was achieved because, honestly, if it had been the first stage of the Kickstarter you would not see the MP crowd running around on the forums saying this was supposed to be a MP focused game, at all. We keep seeing the opposite, SP focused gamers telling all of us that we're all wrong. Battletech is, and always has been, a multiplayer game. I'm not talking the various flavors of games roughly in the setting that came before it, I'm talking BATTLETECH, the board game. This is it's spiritual port to PC. This game supports both multiplayer and single player. The arguments presented here that speak to the contrary utterly baffle me and continue to force an unnecessary fragmentation of the community. We all love the game, please attempt to respect other's viewpoints.

 

[Timaeus]

To be more accurate: The DEVs aren't looking at any of these posts. Period.

This in not true. The HBS devs read these forums. Just because we don't see them post does not mean they're not here reading.

 

[Mojo Amok]

I hate to be the one to point this out, however, Battletech, the game this was essentially "spiritually" ported from is a Multi-player game. Thus, most of us that had experience with the table top would consider Battletech to be a Multi-player game. Now, people can argue all they want about the Kickstarter stages and the initial stages being Single player and all, however, this port of the TT became a Multiplayer game the moment the MP goals were funded.

It doesn't matter at which stage in the kickstarter that the Multiplayer element of the game was achieved because, honestly, if it had been the first stage of the Kickstarter you would not see the MP crowd running around on the forums saying this was supposed to be a MP focused game, at all. We keep seeing the opposite, SP focused gamers telling all of us that we're all wrong. Battletech is, and always has been, a multiplayer game. I'm not talking the various flavors of games roughly in the setting that came before it, I'm talking BATTLETECH, the board game. This is it's spiritual port to PC. This game supports both multiplayer and single player. The arguments presented here that speak to the contrary utterly baffle me and continue to force an unnecessary fragmentation of the community. We all love the game, please attempt to respect other's viewpoints.

My post was actually objective and fact driven. As noted, there is simply nothing in the structure of the original Kickstarter nor HBS' history to back up the claim from @Bolfry that "I knew from the start the Kickstarter was about an MP game with an added-on single player campaign." That dog don't hunt. The game was poised to release as a singleplayer title had the final Kickstarter goal not been unlocked - the inverse is not true.

Now, if someone wants to claim that all Kickstarter goals are equivalent, that's fine as an assessment, but it's also a separate argument from my previous statements.

On the other point, HBS' previous inexperience with competitive PVP is not me editorializing: it's a fact. We could lament that or create interpretations or projections, but it doesn't whisk it away. But, the track record of developers certainly should come into one's expectations of what their next title will be like, even outside of the MP vs. SP discussion (I myself had to run projections on expectations for this game based on the Shadowrun games - I had concerns about the structure of the tactical game and then also had fairly low expectations for Battletech's graphical fidelity).

And frankly, the "this side telling the other that they're all wrong" is coming from both sides - it's not all from the singleplayer community towards the multiplayer community. A fairly common claim MP playerbases make is that "the game will die without MP." We've seen that multiple times in this very thread - that's effectively saying that singleplayer games are non-viable on their own and unsustainable as business models, which pretty well speaks for itself as a, shall we say, not overly supportive position (not to suggest everyone advocating for MP is pushing that argument, but it does come up).

It's also a major stretch to suggest that in instances where MP is the dominant interest over SP that MP advocates won't go after the singleplayer supporters with all sorts of pejoratives. Generally speaking, gaming communities will find ways to fragment and there will be big rowdy disputes even if it's entirely SP gamers arguing with one another or MP gamers arguing with one another - it's kinda equal opportunity and this is hardly the only fractious debate going on within these forums. It's just par and everyone's hands get dirty at one point or another.

Ultimately, HBS won't care too much about the noise or the specifics of the discussion and will make their decision on where to put developer assets based on the popularity of each play-mode - they undoubtedly have data on this (even we have some data with Steam achievements). Those metrics will almost surely be the actual decider.

 

[Morfanos]

Ultimately, HBS won't care too much about the noise or the specifics of the discussion and will make their decision on where to put developer assets based on the popularity of each play-mode - they undoubtedly have data on this (even we have some data with Steam achievements). Those metrics will almost surely be the actual decider.

That's both a very good argument and at the same time, a somewhat biased one. As long as they don't fix multiplayer and deliver the product we were supposed to have(like match making, ladder, etc...), those numbers they have will always be skewed.

As it stand right now, because of the lack of support for multiplayer, the only ones playing it are the hardcore fans.

You want to play a game, here's how it currently works:

You click on multiplayer and wait, and wait, and wait, and still wait, because no one will create open lobbies. Why? Because there's no structures or rules right now with unknown opponent. They can leave at any time if they wish, there's no penalty at all or play extremely cheesy tactics because the game is balanced for the single player for the moment, otherwise, you can be sure the flamers would work differently just to name one unbalanced weapon. That alone is enough to discourage anyone but the hardcore players.

What did those do? Create an unofficial discord for the game, for which you first need to find the address to. Once there, you have to find an opponent by asking and hopping someone will reply, just like it was in the 90s! Lucky for those who get that far, it's usually not too difficult to find someone since we're all in the same situation, hopping to find someone to play with...

... but that's not over, now that you have an opponent, you need to create the game and have him/her connect to it. You can be lucky and it will work on the first try or it might take you half an hour to finally be able to connect. Now the match begins, you play a couple of rounds and out of nowhere, connection to comstar loss, meaning, well, thought luck, game over, since there's no way to save, resume or reconnect to a match for which the connection was loss. How often does this happens? My own stats say 20% of the time(1 game out of 5) and so far, that seems to be the numbers I'm getting when discussing the topic with others.

To be clear, this is not a rant nor is it complaining even if the tone seems to point that way.

I love the game, both single and multiplayer.

No, this is meant for all of the SP people whom I'm pretty sure, at least from reading the comments here, never even tried to play the MP.

This is meant to explain what it means to try and play BattleTech in MP right now and why we want it fixed. That's how much we love this game and how dedicated to it we are.

I'm sure I'll get many "Respectfully Disagree" for this post and that's OK, but please, for once, do tell why you disagree with us when all we want is to be able to enjoy the game.

 

[TaurianMerc]

I hope the people "Strongly Disagreeing" with you have enough cajones to come back here in a couple weeks or so when they all start to reach this same realization too, and admit that they were wrong.

If I reach the same realisation I will do just that. Hell I'll do it if I don't reach the same realisation. Let's say 2 weeks from today, yes?

Half way there, and still going strong. Most of the way through my second playthrough and already coming up with ideas for my third- maybe even run a few mods this time through

 

[President Jyrgunkarrd]

As a former Starcraft player, I would like to disagree with that statement. Having a great multiplayer experience, and in the case of SC, with an eSport level of balance and competition, did not in any ways makes the single player less enjoyable by any mean. Starcraft is far from the only title I could lists here but it is the best one to take as an example.

I honestly cannot understand why so many people keep insisting that both types of game play cannot coexist.

Well, a few things to chew on if StarCraft is our example success story:

1) StarCraft is the last surviving member of a dead genre. One might think that if RTS represented a happy marriage of eSports & single player, it would not have gone largely extinct.

2) StarCraft does get points for having a fully fleshed out SP campaign... but can you seriously argue that the game's shelf life (by which I mean developer support) was in any way informed by the campaign? Because I posit to you that all updates & content have been focused on the eSports side of things, with the SP aspect collecting dust post-launch.

 

[Morfanos]

Half way there, and still going strong. Most of the way through my second playthrough and already coming up with ideas for my third- maybe even run a few mods this time through

Happy to see you're still enjoying the SP, I am too, so much in fact that I'm still holding on to that last campaign mission, so it won't end the story just yet . Can't wait for them to add what's still missing from the SP(aren't supposed to meat famous Mercenaries and legendary mechs? Or are they already in but i'm not seeing them because I haven't fully opened the whole map by not doing the last mission?).

If when and you decide to finally try the MP part of the game, send me a message and I'll be happy to play against you and show you how to avoid most of the "bad" experience I described in my post above. I have to say, I'm slightly tempted to ask you where you're from. I haven't played the TT in over a decade from the lack of opponents, I do miss the TT experience.

 

[Morfanos]

Well, a few things to chew on if StarCraft is our example success story:

1) StarCraft is the last surviving member of a dead genre. One might think that if RTS represented a happy marriage of eSports & single player, it would not have gone largely extinct.

2) StarCraft does get points for having a fully fleshed out SP campaign... but can you seriously argue that the game's shelf life (by which I mean developer support) was in any way informed by the campaign? Because I posit to you that all updates & content have been focused on the eSports side of things, with the SP aspect collecting dust post-launch.

I'm always happy to discuss .

1-It's not so much a dying genre than a genre dominated by just a few games that to have the market all to themselves. I would have to check the numbers but I wouldn't be surprise to see them be higher than the TBS genre(what BattleTech is). It's not that different from what the multiplayer first person landscapde was looking like just a few years ago(before Siege, PUBG and Overwatch), you either had the good old Counter-Strike, Battlefield or CoD, that was it. The same could be said for other genres. Another example of a popular RTS with both good MP and SP would be the Company of Heroes series.

2-Back to StarCraft, I don't know how old you are or when you first played it but for me, it was a day 1 thing. And yes, the support was amazing. Brood was phenomenal for the single player. Even today, I have people telling me the bought the HD remake they release not too long ago to replay that SP. If we go to SC2, in single player alone, you have the equivalent in game time and original story of 3 separate games. Each races campaign is as huge if not bigger than most games single player campaign. True, they didn't release that in one release, as each new campaign was an seen as a expansions(much more expensive than DLCs but cheaper than a full game). They also didn't stop there, they also went further with a more DLC type expansion for one of the game characters. Basically, for more than 6 years, they've worked on improving and adding to the single player side. As for the multiplayer, well, I don't think I need to talk about that part, SC2 still huge as an esport so that should speak for itself. We're in 2018 so we're now going on 8 years of amazing SP and MP for SC2.

I'm not exactly sure why you would describe either Broodwars (SC1) or the 2 additional campaigns and the one DLCs we got for SC2 as :

...Because I posit to you that all updates & content have been focused on the eSports side of things, with the SP aspect collecting dust post-launch.

 

[TaurianMerc]

I have to say, I'm slightly tempted to ask you where you're from.

Originally from "Norf Lundun", now based out in Buckinghamshire (my haven't I gone up in the world )

I haven't played the TT in over a decade from the lack of opponents, I do miss the TT experience.

Truth be told, pretty much the same for me (at least as far is BT is concerned) the old gaming group all drifted apart when people started moving away, and most people I can find are more interested in other games. Currently the Fighting Fringers are on deployment deep in the wilds of the loft somewhere! I am tempted to get the new box sets (when out) and build a new, better looking force and make an effort to find people to play (after reaquainting myself with the rules of course)

 

[Morfanos]

Originally from "Norf Lundun", now based out in Buckinghamshire (my haven't I gone up in the world )

...

I'm not quite sure I'd be willing to make the flight from Montreal, but, if I do end up Buckingham shire one day, I'll make sure to contact you for a nice match .

...

Truth be told, pretty much the same for me (at least as far is BT is concerned) the old gaming group all drifted apart when people started moving away, and most people I can find are more interested in other games. Currently the Fighting Fringers are on deployment deep in the wilds of the loft somewhere! I am tempted to get the new box sets (when out) and build a new, better looking force and make an effort to find people to play (after reaquainting myself with the rules of course)

Yeah, the "sad" part of growing up. I'm still pretty lucky, I have many many friends who like boardgames/TT but they're not willing to commit to BattleTech because of the time it takes to set it up, learn the rules and well, the fact against a new player, well, it would be pretty much one sided. I have the same problem with Diplomacy, no one left with enough time to play a full game anymore .

That's why I was really excited by the kickstarter, to finally be able to play BT easily and quickly(a match usually last 45 minutes). I'm happy to say that when I finally get a game going and that it doesn't disconnect, it's really fun. Not quite the TT feels but still very close to it enough that when playing, it feels like BattleTech and not just a derivative product.

 

[Mojo Amok]

That's both a very good argument and at the same time, a somewhat biased one. As long as they don't fix multiplayer and deliver the product we were supposed to have(like match making, ladder, etc...), those numbers they have will always be skewed.

Given the amount of money involved, they'll have to perform metrics before greenlighting anything particularly robust, just as they would with any other potential game facet that they were considering advancing. Realistically, they aren't going to take a "build it and they will come" position on faith. If we're talking more modest alterations, they do have a job opening post for a 'Multiplayer Network Engineer' on their homepage, which suggests that they at least want to improve stability issues (the position has been posted for a long while, though).

With Paradox onboard, they almost surely now have some more compelling assessment tools for gauging sentiment than they had previously - some probably tied to these very forums. I have seen from Paradox Dev communiques a very firm and data-based understanding of what's going on in their games.

Front and center on anyone signing the check's mind I'm sure would be creating an experience based on an MP format that has been proven to be successful recently (ie. gameplay fundamentals & time-per-match in particular). Sort of like the old discussion of an initiative system and why they didn't go with simultaneous turns (WEGO) - if there aren't particularly successful games using that system, you don't risk it with millions of dollars on the line.

 

[paradat]

Wait this game has multiplayer?

Never had a single thought to trying it. The solo play is just so good and it was the reason for my purchase.

 

[Mojo Amok]

[mod edit:removed quote]

Well, in fairness there were a few statements that needed redressing. Like the one I quoted above about an "...added-on single-player campaign." I had to re-read that one about ten times to make sure I wasn't either drunk or suffering from a sudden inability to detect sarcasm. "The game will die without MP" is also not my absolute favorite position either (not that you said it) - I refrained from responding, but that is really out on the street and flagging the bull more than benign internal communications within a private club.

Anyway, carry on - as noted, HBS is hiring a Network Engineer, so something will surely happen on their end.

 

[Zakhodit]

Well, in fairness there were a few statements that needed redressing. Like the one, I quoted above about an "...added-on single-player campaign." I had to re-read that one about ten times to make sure I wasn't either drunk or suffering from a sudden inability to detect sarcasm. "The game will die without MP" is also not my absolute favorite position either (not that you said it) - I refrained from responding, but that is really out on the street and flagging the bull more than benign internal communications within a private club.

Reddit forums are awash with threads about "Finished campaign, bored now" Posts. This is the death of any single player game. Death is too strong a word. I should not have titled this thread the way I did.

From a certain point of view stating that the game will "die without MP" is more true than stating "The Game is fine because replay." Can you name a single player game from the 90's that has a huge following and tens of thousands of players? I can't. Can you name a MP game from the 90's that has a huge following and tens of thousands of players?

Starcraft. Oh, yeah that also had a single player campaign. So are you going to tell me that if Starcraft didn't have MP that anyone would be playing it now? Or that there would be a starcraft 2? Sure, you can say that but its obviously not true.

The Mechwarrior games were all single player. I get that. But Battletech wasn't It was a table top war game and if you really wanted to play you needed a friend. I mean, you can play CLUE with your self, but that's not very fun. This video game was designed with the spirit of the table top game. It will eventually go away without multiplayer.

As all single player games do.

Some multiplayer games stick around for a long time.